Capitals Players Bring Their Dads, Mentors to Work

WASHINGTON — Almost everyone is familiar with Bring Your Kid to Work Day, but the Washington Capitals have had good success with the opposite: bring your dad or mentor to work.

It’s an annual tradition known as “Dad’s Trips” and allows Caps players to repay some of the sacrifices that family and mentors invested in them to make it to the NHL. It also gives the team a chance to treat the mentors to a unique experience.

With this year’s trip to St. Louis, that experience included a trip to the Budweiser Experience. Needless to say, it was a hit:

“I think having us here is exciting for them and important for them to put their best foot forward,” Kevin Wilson, father of Tom Wilson, told the Caps’ team reporter Mike Vogel. “Not that they don’t every single night, but we’ll cheer as loudly as we need to and hopefully they’ll win a game or two.”

The dads and mentors have been good luck charms in the past, helping to kick off a nine-game winning streak during the 2015-2016 season. Over the history of the tradition, the Caps have gone 10-5 with their dads and mentors in attendance.

Even as their sons have gone on to become some of the best at their positions in the world, parents can still look at the game analytically and philosophically.

“Energy is an amazing thing. Too much energy may land you in the penalty box, but you need energy to kill penalties,” the elder Wilson said. “Tom loves killing those penalties, and I think for him, he understands that you can’t kill penalties when you’re taking one. So he’s working hard to stay on the ice for when Coach [Barry] Trotz wants him and needs him.